Rani, Immortal
by aragonite
Summary: I've been wanting to do a Rani vs. Two fic a LONG time, and with Kate O'Mara's passing, I thought this is the best I could do…she was such a wonderful actress!
1. Chapter 1

**Rani, Immortal**

_I've been wanting to do a Rani vs. Two fic a LONG time, and with Kate O'Mara's passing, I thought this is the best I could do…she was such a wonderful actress!_

_Characters: The Rani, Second Doctor, mentions of Serena. The Brigadier. Barb and reference to THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH and THE NAMELESS CITY (prose)_

_Timeline: After WORLD GAME (prose), and deep within the years of Season 6B. Events happen after Time and the Rani; Mark of the Rani. Just before THE POWERS OF TWO fanfic I have on fflnet where Two rescues The Brigadier from The Year That Never Was._

_Here Two is picking up the pieces for the CIA again, between visits to Jamie and Zoe and Victoria._

* * *

She was one of the more ghoulish memories of his past. He couldn't think of her without thinking of the painful memories that coincided with knowing her: the growing rift between himself and the others in the Deca.

His slow-moving alienation between himself and his own people.

He still didn't understand how Gallifrey could hold the likes of him as a monster on par with her evil. He wasn't evil; he was trying to _help_ people—all people, not just his own. Gallifrey really had enough of her own champions. Why not champion for one of the underdogs once in a while? Wasn't that important?

The answer was no; never. Little people for little lives.

The Doctor sighed. His head still hurt but he moved slowly, and piece by piece he found what he needed in his bulging pockets.

Matches.

A two-ounce bottle of ethylene.

A Galactic Missile.

An empty brown paper wrap, from a sweets shop on his last trip to Earth.

He wondered if those were the last jelly babies he'd ever taste, because he feared the reaction of the Time Lords when they received his report.

He sat cross-legged on the damp ground, the tails of his frock coat trailing over the rocky stone. He poured the little bottle of lighter fluid into the paper bag a few drops at a time, letting it soak through the fibres and spread.

The fumes hurt his head, but his head already hurt. Combat did that. He hated to fight. He hated how it made him feel; like how easy it would be to take over and take charge, to remove free will from the equation because he claimed to know better than others.

Humans. His bloody lip burned but he smiled anyway. Barbara would have been proud of him, wouldn't she? He'd learned her most important lessons simply by following her example.

* Let people rescue themselves; otherwise they'll never know if they can rescue themselves.

* Make small changes, slowly.

* Stay in the sidelines.

* Fight to defend; all else is a fight for its own sake.

* And when all else fails…hit the Dalek with the truck in fourth gear.

The little Time Lord paused and reached up, frowning at an odd sensation at his right eyebrow. His fingertips came away sticky. What a lack of surprise there.

Well, he'd get that cleaned up too. First things first, though…

The Doctor picked and poked at the heavy coating on the firecracker until the cap was prized off. He poured the powder charge into the bottom of the fuel-soaked bag, and gently shook the closed back until the interior was lightly coated all over.

Almost over.

He stood up, slowly. Every bone ached now. And he was very frightened for what would happen after this night.

The Time Lords wouldn't be angry with him for what he did. Oh, no.

They would be pleased with him.

Fulsome in their praise.

He didn't want their praise; they'd take this horror and imagine it meant he was becoming a proper Time Lord again, the way he'd been back when he was "respectable" and honored.

_I'm a pariah, exiled from Time Lord Society, so they can always deny sending me._

The hurt had never left, but he'd _thought_ he was coming to terms with it. Once in a while something would cause his personal loathing for the situation to rise up and take control of his perspective.

If the Time Lords had been more responsible and less "neutral" with other worlds, Dastari might never have hatched the insane plan to take him apart; his unholy experiment Chessene might never have tried to turn him into an Androgum, and the Sontarans would certainly have never helped.

"More responsible and less neutral" would have saved Miasmia Goria from the Rani. The memories of that poor, blistered-over planet still made him shiver.

He walked stiffly to the edge of the wood and tucked the improvised tinder into a deep shelter surrounded by the papery wisps of blue barkwood. His hands shook over the matches, but he struck fire on the first try.

The little Time Lord cupped the tiny flame inside his hands, letting it grow in strength, and painfully knelt, touching match to paper. A breath later he was stepping backwards, the gush of hot hair ruffling his hair away from his face.

The paper crumpled in on itself, and the wood caught. The Doctor took another step backwards, his hot, dry skin loosening as he re-entered the zone of cool, damp night air.

It was ridiculous how much he wished for the Brigadier's wisdom right now.

Jamie he needed for his warmth and sense of self but this…no. He didn't ever want Jamie to see this side of him.

But the Brigadier would know what he was feeling. And he'd understand.

Maybe he would be able to explain it to him.

Odd how that old soldier could surprise him with his strange wisdoms, but humans could be like that. Their strangest form of wisdom was in their refusal to see the Time Lords as Time Lords; they treated him as a powerful, resourceful friend, not a temporal God like so many other species.

A friend.

Time and Space, but he needed a friend right now.

_Crump._

Wood ignited into a burning tower of fire, violet from potassium nitrates native to the wood. It was a rare shade, and quite beautiful to the sight. And it was very, very hot. He winced at its heat against the still-swelling bruises on his skin, and clutched the heavy branch in his hands.

Yes, the Brigadier could explain this. Maybe he should look him up and see how he was doing…before his life came to its natural destiny in bed.

The little Time Lord accepted that most of the Universe saw him as a fool. It kept him alive—and it kept his friends alive (which was more important). But he did get tired of being treated like a fool. Sometimes it was a day to day struggle, and his otherselves really didn't help. They saw him not only a fool and a clown but an overly emotional one.

A loud, crackling sound skittered up from the middle of the bonfire. Oils from the ancient wood ignited and a strange, sweet perfume like juniper and fenugreek and nutmeg clouded his view of the stars.

The Doctor tilted his stiffening neck up to watch the clouds roll in oddly beautiful patterns across the clouds of the Andromeda Galaxy.

"So foolish," He murmured out loud, and wished he didn't feel so old and tired just now. Whilst he deserved it, he couldn't risk it. Old and tired people were a liability to themselves and to others, and his work was far from over.

"I am sorry." The Doctor said to the starry night. "I should have asked Napoleon for a funeral pyre. He would have granted you anything to commemorate your death. All I had to do was tell him you wanted a burial in fire. But I was too afraid of attracting notice. We'd already been noticed by too many people.

"We stopped the Players, but you died and your last words to me was "I finally did something." You didn't 'finally' do something. You saved an entire world, and that meant everything. You never had a chance to see the Universe. You died and I had you buried like a human and I had no idea the Rani was there the whole time!"

The smoke billowed. He pulled out his handkerchief and covered his nose and mouth with the cloth as the fire caught on the contents resting in the middle.

"Always hiding in the plain sight of war. Oh, how I wish I'd known. I _must_ have crossed paths with her before. I seem to always wind up in some sort of war when I come to Earth!" Despite the heat he stepped close and used his stick to push burning brands back into the flames.

"I chide myselves for their naivety, but I'm no better. I should have been more paranoid! But I wasn't. And because I wasn't, your remains were looted by one of the most evil geniuses of our world."

He blinked back the sting of smoke in his eyes, and wiped at them with the back of his coat sleeve. "I'm not sorry for how this ended, Serena. I know you'd be disappointed in me for falling into that trap of primitive emotions, but…I'm not sorry. She's done so many terrible things. She rendered her own planet a ruined cinder. I know. I was there. She enslaved the people and enslaved an incalculable number of humans for their neurochemicals, caused untold suffering, I can't even number the lives she's taken, and the souls she's damaged. You might argue you had no life to steal, but she was harvesting your body for her own ends, and her own ends were brilliant but never for good." He shivered, for the outcome had been close. "Ten more minutes and she would have cloned enough of your biodata that she could have broken into the Matrix on your genetic key. Ten minutes.

He winced slightly; the pyre was a fireball of all-consuming heat.

"I'm not going to let History repeat itself!" The Doctor said firmly. "Your ashes are already on their way home to your family. Now all I have to do is—" He stabbed at a crumbling log, shoving it back into the middle of the glow. "—make certain—no one will be able to—"…He grunted from the effort, but even though he was one of the smallest Doctors, he was still one of the strongest, and a heavy chunk of trunk collapsed on top of the body inside the flames. "—harvest her matter for the reasons why she harvested yours!" He shuddered from both effort and memory.

"That's not going to happen." The Doctor vowed.

And with that he stepped back into the cool night, holding vigil as the bonefire burned. He was over 900 years old now, though temporally trapped inside this body he usually never felt his age so much. But that seemed to happen when he took on a mission without his friends.

Not that he begrudged Jamie his time with his family, or Zoe and Victoria their lives. No, never that. But it frightened him that he'd come so close to death. No one would have known if the Rani had succeeded in her plans against him. It had been very, very close.

At heart he took no pleasure from what he was doing. It was another enemy defeated, another foe vanquished…another predator removed. But he felt old and tired and tomorrow there would be another enemy. Maybe it would be the Master—again. Or the Great Intelligence. Or another old friend turned sour.

But there would only be one Rani.

The Rani.

Ushas. Named after an obscure poet from the wilderness. On earth her name meant "Dawn" in Sanskrit. The greatest biochemist their school had ever seen.

And without a doubt, the most evil of minds; more so than even the Master, who was at least _capable_ of some compassion. She had lost that ability long ago...trading it in for rationalization and justifying the means with the ends in her centuries and centuries of slaughter.

They'd bonded briefly over the shared love of botany, but the differences in ethics split them apart just as quickly. It had always been her nature to cut a mystery apart until it was no more than a lump of molecules; he preferred to understand what he had, and cherish it for what it was: unique and therefore a treasure.

She would have taken _him_ apart, given the chance. Taken him apart, used his bioprint to pick the lock in the Matrix, and plundered the minds within.

She had always been smarter than he, but unlike the Master she never bothered with pointing out the inferior qualities of others unless they got in her way of scientific achievement.

He had been invited to her 94th birthday party. He had gone, flattered with their friendship and a little puzzled at how birthday parties happened. Other families celebrated them, but not his.

She'd given him his first time-piece; one of the small party tokens handed out casually to the guests. It didn't mean much to her; it was mechanical and thus less interesting, and anyway, a cheap thing.

He'd kept it until it fell apart. It was on him when he fled Gallifrey. It was centuries before anyone gave him another gift.

How ironic that it had been The Necronomicon; Jamie's innocent generosity at the machinations of the Master.

He remembered how beautiful she had been so easily, before the hard lines of obsession closed over her face and turned her eyes to flint.

He would always regret not asking her the one question he hadn't asked her when they graduated:

_"What are you afraid of, to pursue your answers with such zeal?"_

She wouldn't have answered. He knew this.

But he still wished he could have asked the question.


	2. Chapter 2

Because I was politely begged to expand on the background.

This is still a moody piece. The Second Doctor was often underestimated by friends and foe alike for his brazen, childish love of life, but his behavior models closely along those who grew up without having a childhood. Some people never learn what they've missed. I like to believe the Doctor is one of those rare, lucky people who overcome the emotional obstacles with growing up in an overly strict environment. Hartnell's Doctor grew over the course of his tenure from a cantankerous, reluctant and callous authoritarian to someone who learned to value friendship and companionship. This happened because he was traveling with humans-a species so young they would always be children to him.

Once his demeanor softened under the presence of humans, he changed forever. One of his last scenes show Hartnell at his uttermost heroic: frail, elderly, missing his teeth and nearing the end of his body, he joins in and argues with Polly against the Cybermen on the value of feelings-the very things his own people eschew save "in moderation" for fear they will be seen as weak and flawed.

And then, before we know it, he has collapsed upon the floor of the TARDIS. When he gets up again, it is as a younger man, a childlike man, his eyes re-opened to the wonders of the Universe.

After the stifling example of his people, the Doctor has learned the lesson of seeing with the eyes of a child. He will never un-learn this lesson again.

* * *

The entire planet is in chaos when he materializes.

For long minutes he simply stands halfway out of the TARDIS doorway, one hand hanging on the edge and stares at what had once been a fertile planet with long, feathery sweeps of violet-green grasses and yellow flowers. The planet is a rare one; partially sentient according to all the scans and tests, and the Temporal Committees had all agreed it should be left alone in order to develop naturally.

And develop it did: naturally and gently.

And then the Rani happened to Miasmia Goria.

There's not much sign of a fertile planet now. It's night and may be night for the next eighty years if the cloud cover keeps renewing itself from that smoking valley.

More smoke. He tips his head back, ruffling his untidy mop of thick hair as he overlooks a blurry row of smoking pillars. Factory after factory billows into poisonous gases through the stacks. They reflect sulphurous burnt-orange flames on the underbellies of clouds rendered heavy with toxic rain.

Even with the HADS switched off, the TARDIS refused to get any closer than this grassy knoll sheltered by the skeletons of dead trees.

The knoll, he notes with no small irony, is untouched because it is a graveyard.

Oh, it is irony. The living are killing each other, but the dead are sacrosanct.

He must be getting older, the Doctor thinks, because he's actually finding a scrap of comfort in this…he needs to know that there are some things people still find precious on this planet.

And with the horrific suffering before his eyes, he rationalizes that they may as well soothe their psychic wounds with the dead. The dead are beyond pain and suffering.

So many people believe. It's been his experience that that isn't the rule, but people need to believe in something. Even lies can lead to truth.

The little man huddles inside his overlarge, baggy coat and makes himself even smaller as he kneels beneath the largest tree. Years of chemical rain have turned this tree into mineral sculpture. With the first of nightfall's cold mist it weeps tiny calcium and boron pearls around him as he pulls the little oval-shaped disk out of one pocket and switches it on.

The face on the other side is stern and extremely imperious and impervious, her Royal Bara necklace gleaming deep lavender. That only happens when she's feeling distressed. He's still glad to see her.

"Report." She says simply.

"Karnak." He clears his throat. "I'm on the planet now." His eyes slip to the side and the awful hells below. "It…It is as bad as the reports say."

The face moves slightly, the strong mouth softens in a complicated blend of emotions. Even after all these years, he still never…quite…knows what she's thinking.

It's one of the things he likes about her. All his life people have said the same thing about him, but with her, he actually knows what it feels like.

"Be careful, Crius." The Agent uses her pet name for him when she is feeling very much worried. And she even looks worried now. He doesn't think she's pretending. "We'll stick to the plan for now. Go in but be cautious…" She takes a deep breath, and he hears it over the distant cries of fear and murder and anger. "Psychic status of the planet?"

"Still weak," The Doctor rubs at the back of his neck; his flesh is crawling. "But the whole planet's shifting. I can feel her through the soil. It's humming in the air. Like being in the Matrix if it were controlled by the mad."

"We'll have to Link," Karnak admits grudgingly. He appreciates her reluctance because it is for his sake. Her own people are warm and affectionate, easy with telepathic transference of thought and feeling. Time Lords—especially those of his breed—are nervous about letting others under their skin.

But he hasn't been much of a typical Time Lord; his in-the-trenches life as a renegade have amplified his normally latent Gallifreyan abilities to a higher level. He wishes this wasn't the reason why they paired him with Karnak. Royal Bara'tel yes, but her mother was one-quarter Offworlder before she was given Time Lady status. Even though Karnak was born after her mother was "blessed" with the Chameleon Arch, some of the snootier families still saw her as a mongrel breed.

Sometimes, the Doctor asked himself if Gallifrey had its periods of governance by racially judgmental fools just because it kept things from being boring. He really couldn't think of any other reason. His people loved their superiority so much, they parsed it to atoms, quarreled, and formed entire social feuds over it.

But they need her, and sadly, they need him too.

"All right." He hears himself saying. Rassilon, he hates telepathic links. Just the thought makes his already out-of-sync heartsbeat pound like a crazed child with bongo drums. "What level?" He hates asking, but she's the one in charge of this mission, not him.

"Just the first," she says quietly, knowing he's distressed at the thought of sharing minds with someone who is mandated to report him if she thinks he's out of line.

She'll probably report him anyway, he tells himself. He was bone-tired from his last mission over in the Vogon System when he got the summons-straight out of a much-needed nap. It's possible his response to the idiot on the other side of the screen could be seen as rude and hasty...assuming they had a dictionary to look up some of the words...

Something knocks politely at his Pineal Gland: Karnak being mannerly.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep, restorative breath, clearing his thoughts. Between his mind and hers a thread of psychic kenning spins. It's thinner than a spider's web but that's all they need. When he opens his eyes he knows she's watching the world through them as well. Probably even smelling the same, poisoned air.

(Ready?) She asks.

He nods. "No time like the present." He says grimly.

* * *

It takes over six hours to get to the heart of the falling city. It takes cunning and guile to get through the shattered streets, ruined buildings and the swarms of crazed survivors. They can't see him in his Concealment Cloak, but that doesn't protect him against stray missiles, or explosions, shrapnel, the sporadic blitzkrieg of burning rubble hailing from above…or worst of all, the massive buildups of atmospheric static that discharge in the form of lightning bolts.

Saddest of all are the proofs that the planet's sentience is damaged and possibly beyond repair. The people would have never caused harm to their beloved world, their home, their Goddess/God, their Mother/Father. He sees monuments to the rift in broken rocks, exploded cliff-faces that housed the elaborate living stone chambers. And the bodies left to desiccate in the poisoned air.

"I felt safer when I was in the Death Zone," he complains once as he gets into the nook of a crumbled-up alleyway just in time. It's the lightning; it reminds him all too well of how that would come out of nowhere in the Death Zone.

(How often were you in the Death Zone?) Karnak asks him with a shade of amusement behind her concern.

"Oh, dear. Officially or un-officially?" He huddles up as the charge slowly grounds itself out. The ruined air stinks of ozone, and his hair is trying to stand on end and dance a tango.

In the old days he wouldn't even have come within a hundred trillion miles of Miasimia Goria. The Rani was as much of a renegade as he was back then—but a renegade is a renegade, and most of them would have turned him in for a little leverage or power with Gallifrey.

In the Rani's case he wouldn't have worried about _her_ turning him in. She was much more likely to slice apart anything that struck her fancy, and her sharkish tendencies had no concept of ethics. Everything and anything was just a potential experiment or a living petri dish for some awful biological game.

No. If she'd caught him here…he's 200% certain he would have wound up on the wrong side of her examination table. And the Jade Dreamers only knew what she would have done to him then! Besides keep him alive as long as possible. She could never resist the allure of exotic specimens, and her own people were the rarest experimental subjects of all. She'd make the one last as well as she could. He shivered under his coat, chilled to the bone at an all-too-plausible prospect.

These people had been under the Rani's complete rule. Poor things. He doubts they could recognize themselves after this point. She's tampered with their bodies, their minds, their very souls. It was the mind-tampering that enhanced their abilities to the point they could generate telekenisis with their psychic draw upon the rare crystals of the earth itself…but that experiment went sour as that portion of the brain needed sleep to replenish. She'd taken that away and they'd gotten violent. Then she went to Earth and started harvesting the neurochemical serum for sleep from human brains.

…and then the humans turned violent as well.

The mathematics of this problem are astronomical. What the Rani had removed from one human wasn't enough for even one of the Gorians; it took about twenty humans to create one successful treatment.

(How is it your future self learnt of the Rani's atrocities in the first place?) Karnak wondered.

"You know how it goes," he sighs. "Run into yourself here, run in there, meet yourself coming and going…before long you find you're both in the Matrix at the same time…"

(Oh. Oh, that does complicate things.) Karnaks' mind-voice is genuine in its pity. He doesn't mind it from her; she's honest about her feelings. Just like Jamie.

It is not only illegal and immoral to jump forward in your timestream, it is considered Bad Form. Rude. Socially humiliating. About as outré and embarrassing as having an unfortunate accident that compels you to regenerate in public.

On the other hand, accidents happen, and they happen a lot.

If you asked his Keepers at the CIA, they would posit he was nothing but one unfortunate accident after another; a chain of regrettable events that was better off kept on a short leash in order to prevent further fallout from the disastrous consequences of his freedom.

As if to underscore their bitter truth, a shelled-out building on the other side of the street implodes. He has time to dive behind a broken chunk of stone roof as Karnak shrieks her alarm in his mind. By the time the air clears of its fresh wave of dust and his ears quit ringing, he can sense they're both shaking.

(Let's try to finish this, Clius,) She advises with a mind-voice gone thin with strain. (But first I think you should try to get some sleep.)

"There's no time to sleep! Or even a decent place," he adds just as a building crumbles to sand on the other side of the valley. Its death-throes barely ripple the scarred earth. The black slime clogging the canals only bubbles once.

(You're safe enough where you are. It's a shrine of some sort.)

He twists his head backwards and finds himself looking eye to cross-eyed eye with a stone gargoyle of sort, its jaws neatly and delicately holding the heart of a penitent on its way to the Afterlife. If the heart was evil the Dead-walker would swallow it, but if it was pure it would be carried to its loved ones on the other side. The Doctor gulps at the not-subtle imagery.

"I'm not sure I can sleep with that over my head!"

(I'll keep watch, Crius.) Karnak is being VERY patient. She lets him know this, especially when he's being skittish. (They brought you in cold and you didn't have time to recover. One would think they thought you were only two hundred years old or something.)

"Or something." He says uneasily, but the offer to sleep while someone watches is a tempting one. He settles against the rubble under the Shrine, reassured that it's as safe as anything else here.

Silence. They both listen to the sounds of anarchy in the distance. On the other side of the web-thread of the mind, Karnak is seated in her office, a Pythian bowl lit to aid her concentration. He envies the calm, cool order of her thoughts. She's so self-aware. He used to think he was that way, once.

"I don't know how I can get into that wretched lab without being seen," He snaps crossly. "It's _the Rani,_ Karnak! You know she's got enough booby-traps from here to her office to baffle a Dalek!"

(We'll just have to be careful. I've got your bioprints on a solid lock. If it gets truly bad I'll risk pulling you out.)

"It's already bad enough," he whispers. In the distance there is wailing, high-pitched and pure as an entire world continues its slide into madness.


	3. Wrestling with Oneself over Oneself

**Rani, Immortal: 6/2 = 3**

**Cameo of The Sixth Doctor here in the events of _Trial of a Timelord._**

* * *

Karnak was too ethical to tell the Doctor she was tired too. He would try to stay awake; do something to add to the vigilance.

But...she was only half-Gallifreyan, and that half carried more healthy cynicism than the other half. Ancestors be praised.

She didn't ask him about his last mission. _Anything_ involving the Matrix was bound to be rewarding for Gallifrey as a whole but...pricey for the Gallifreyan who had been in the involving. And using him for the work? That went without saying.

The Matrix was a frightening entity. Part computer, part crystal ball scrying into the future, part archival depository and part ghost town filled with the recorded ('salvaged' was the word) identities of the dead. It was literally its own universe-careless or unlucky minds and souls had become lost in its infinite depths. A lot of the dead disliked their neighbors and occasional warfare happened when they became conscious of each other. Karnak's family on both sides suspected without proof the Matrix as a whole was sentient and self-aware.

The "respectable" side of Karnak's lineage held often muttered and uncomplimentary opinions about most things designed by Rassilon, but in this case she agreed with their blanket assertions. Paranoia was often rooted in fertile soils.

As a reined-in renegade who had (by now) spent most of his life exposed to Artron Energy, The Doctor was the first choice whenever someone was needed to attach his brain into the Matrix.

"Which is only reasonable, when you think of it," went the tired old arguments in the CIA. "These renegades are under our care in order to restore the imbalance their anarchist ways have placed upon our society. The burden of redress is upon them, and renegades are ideal for high-Artron work."

"That would be putting the Master in the same category as the Doctor." One person had commented to the latest quarrel. Karnak had heard these quarrels, off and on for thousands of years. Only the names changed, and a few circumstances.

"I daresay the Master and the Doctor would both disagree with sharing a cell in your mind, my friend..."

The repartee was witty-the conditions were not.

In the old days it was easier to get "good behavior parolees" because simply put, _there were more travellers in the Vortex._ Vortex Travel = Artron Energy in the brain.

When the Time Lords made the still-controversial decision to cut themselves off from the Universe, they soon found they had "shot themselves in the headdress" with the succeeding generations growing progressively less equipped to work with their original technologies.

The old SIDRATS were no problem-Karnak had repaired hundreds in her lifetimes. They were rough built and rough-used. The Type 40 TARDISes slowly left the plane as they fell apart or grew too old and decrepit. A shame, really-they had lovely elegance. Then of course there were the bowships-the first ones to be taken apart but high rate of force-regenerations and suicides among their crews tragically lessened the numbers of Artron-skilled diviners into the Matrix.

Every two or three thousand years, someone would hatch up anoter poorly-concocted project to get the Matrix to accept the lower-Artronic levels of her Time Lordian masters. That always meant a recon of some sort-which brought Karnak right around the clock to where she'd started.

The Doctor was a renegade with a cranium full of the now-rare energy. He was also, unlike the majority of the CIA's renegades, defined by what he was not.

He was not a sociopath.

He was not a crazed murderer.

He was not a drooling maniac with fixed delusions of his own self as deity, or (Thanks again to the Ancestors) a mean-spirited recalcitrant.

He was simply...the best choice in the matter because he could be trusted to do his job to shave off a few more years off his future life's Exile...and not slaughter all of Gallifrey while he was at it.

Karnak had actually passed him in the Hallways of Learning some weeks before, in the company of Tovel the Physician. He must have been on his way to that wretched Matrix.

_There are safer ways to access the Matrix...but those marks on his head..._

No...there was no questioning the proofs of the eye. He had been plugged up to the Matrix through the neural pathways. Tovel must have been his monitor as he did whatever it was he was supposed to be doing...

_Sneaking into the Matrix like a thief...through the very back of the system instead of going in the usual way... Whatever he was doing, it was more of those secret things the CIA is so good at doing..._

Karnak shuddered to think of the Doctor-any Time Lord-lying on one of those at-rest couches, with the neural readers taped to the flesh of his skull. She chafed her hands over the little flame in the Pythian bowl, needing the warm comfort against the chill of her thoughts.

_(?)_ A drowsy echo fluttered at the edge of her mind. (_What is it, Karnak?)_

_Go back to sleep,_ she thought firmly. _I didn't mean to keep you awake, Crius. I am sorry._

_(Quite all right...)_

There was a pause, during which Karnak continued her self-flagellation, and she sensed a long, drawn out yawn. She was grateful the Doctor was finally tired enough to reach the borders of sleep. He needed it-even if the only place to sleep was underneath a statue guaranteed to create nightmares.

She could detect slivers of impression from his mind: far-off explosions. The acridity of combustion and chemical. An ever-present psychic residue of the dead. It set her nape prickling. If she concentrated, she could feel the grit of calcium vapour between her teeth. Ugh. He was truly skilled at living offworld if he could bear it.

But she had promised to watch over him, and a long-distance supervision was far easier than doing this in person. In her "mind's eye" she could see him curl up inside the folds of his cloak, allowing the artificial warmth to soothe him into relaxing. Behind this good, solid commonsense she felt a temporal prioritization: He was marshalling his resources for later, when he would be facing whatever the Rani had left in her labs.

_Crius?_ She finally asked.

_(Hm?) _

It suddenly struck her that an entire day had passed without playing their usual game-she calling him by her clan's version of "the Doctor", and he asking why. She sighed and kept to the subject, ignoring his low morale. _How did the Time Lords find out about the Rani? Wasn't she hiding in the Streams of Time?_

_(Even clever renegades can make mistakes.)_ This response was weary, but from the interleaved layers of truth hiding in that simple sentence. _(She was too clever, Karnak. She left a trail. I...bother. I caught wind of it while I was in the Matrix.)_

_You came across a future Event? _No wonder he was rattled. Time Lords were Time Lords, but they didn't like to play with the future. They liked it even less when the future jumped in front of them and said boo. _That...sounds awful._

_(Yes. Yes it was.)_ He yawned again, and she felt him close his eyes in sleep.

* * *

_**A week ago:**_

"Where's Sardon?!"

After half an hour of watching the Doctor's life-readings climb high, spike, climb higher, spike again, and then suddenly...level out as if he were brain-dead but still demonstrate brain and life readings...Tovel was almost happy to see a most troublesome agent jerk upright like a lightning-enlivened robot. Connection wires popped off his temples, chest and wrists so quickly the agent fancied he saw sparks.

"It is I, Tovel. Sardon is at his duties. As he should be."

This soothing explanation seemed to make things worse.

I am right here, Doctor." Tovel continued evenly and calmly-control was natural for him, and he far preferred to see someone else out of control than himself. "I trust you were able to find the anomalies in the Matrix?"

"They're not anomalies." The little renegade was shaking his head, yanking connectors off with hateful enthusiasm. His hair had wildened up from its exposure to static. As Tovel watched, he took a deep breath. "There's an echo going on in the data banks. An echo from the future."

"The future." Tovel repeated. "Oh, dear. Not again." Those wretched things took forever to clean out...

"Yes. A warning." Without any warning of his own, the Doctor leaned forward, clutching at his skull. "Ow!" He complained. "It...it-oh, my giddy aunt! That smarts! It is already straightening itself out." But with a wince that threatened to clench his brow into his chin, the little man swung his feet off the edge of the couch. "That's not the problem, though."

"I hesitate to ask you what that would be."

"I contacted a..." He flinched again, swallowing hard. "A freelance agent of some sort. They were trying to report a crime to the CIA and since I was the closest thing they had, I took their report."

Tovel actually stood up. "I can't remember the last time anyone reported a crime to us. Who was this freelance agent?"

The smile from the Doctor's face was ghastly. "He calls himself a Poet..." He supplied. "And he certainly dressed like one."

* * *

And while Tovel rose and barked orders, the Doctor behaved himself and composed his mind. The pain from the exposure to the Matrix was fading; some of it was exaggerated but with good cause. It was never a good idea to let anyone know how well he could navigate in the corridors of digital reality.

What had shocked him, though, was that his future self, who should have been even better at it than he was now...had not gained appreciably in skill.

It made him wonder (again) about some of the things the CIA was doing to his mind-in the past, in his present...and his future.

He stilled his breath and closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips together in a calming mudra. About him other Time Lords were coming in-that plump jape Milvo, and sour Ragnar. Narvin couldn't possibly be far, the pinch-faced old puppet...they were allowing him the time to recover from his clearly traumatic experience as they set up the means for the report. Sardon, he could hear, was on his way.

All he had to do was give them a sanitized, bare-bones accounting. No one lightly reported a crime to the CIA, and to be honest, they far preferred a skeletal accounting as opposed to an overly detailed version. Too many details increased the odds of their being forced to do something.

He certainly wasn't going to tell him that the information came from his future self. Even though he technically didn't cross over the timelines (the Matrix was its own little separate zone of what defined reality), and it wasn't breaking the Laws of Time because the Matrix was its own set of rules...it would still be unpalatable.

_Not that you haven't broken the rules of Time for your own purposes, again and again._ he thought darkly of his Minders. But that was the luxury of being in a position of power within the CIA.

* * *

**In the Matrix:**

WHAT IN THE NAME OF RASSILON'S RED ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?

The Matrix was being just as annoying as he remembered back in his 4th incarnation, so he couldn't say he was in the best of moods. Being attacked by the Valeyard and resorting to Glix for help (after the humiliation of watching the Master stand up and sort of vouch for you) whilst dealing with Peri's death and being separated from Mel did absolutely nothing to alleviate the situation.

The Doctor's reaction to the furious/horrified mind/voice was something less than his usual superior control and _equilibre_. Then again, it wasn't easy to look as though one was in control of a situation when dirty hands were pulling one down into a simulated bed of quicksand while Glix yelled and yelled.

He'd been (so far) performing beautifully in the madness of the Matrix-gone-mad with everyone thinking he was foundering fast. Acting, it had once been said, was often the resort of the intelligent.

And then without warning, his mind had collided with a just as shocked and _quite_ indignant version of his past self.

ME? WHY AM I ALWAYS THE ONE ON TRIAL? WHAT ARE **YOU** DOING IN HERE, YOU MEDDLING OLD GOAT?

High-speed telepathic communications quite often left something to be desired in terms of nice manners. It was just too honest of a mental playground to hold back on all of one's thoughts and feelings, and anyway, this particular past personality was a bit…overly effective when it came to matters mental.

SO I'M AN OLD GOAT NOW? WHEN DID I GET PROMOTED IN YOUR HEAD? The mind-voice lowered its volume a bit (thank goodness) and chuckled wickedly. ...STILL REMEMBERING THAT COLLISION WITH ..._ZODIN_?

The Doctor felt his cheeks burn. "Oh, you _would_ bring up Zodin, wouldn't you, you—"

Too late, the Doctor realized his flicker of outrage was enough to bridge the synaptic gap between them. Might as well get this over with…

CONTACT

CONTACT (you moron)

QUIT ARGUING WITH YOURSELF.

IF YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH YOURSELF, WHO CAN YOU ARGUE WITH?

The Brilliant ones always did go mad…

A clear, long note of music (D3) swept through his consciousness and the surrounding reality.

Time Suspended.

The Doctor was a little surprised at what happened next—quite an accomplishment considering the carnivale happenings inside the Valeyard's Matrix.

Standing before him as they stood inside a bubble of unrelenting darkness stood Himself.

Specifically, Himself in his second lifetime.

Calmer now, the Doctor scowled. There was never a good time for one's Timestream to cross over with oneself, even in the dubious safety zone of a temporally foggy computer...but it seemed to happen a lot within his persona known as "The Cosmic Hobo.

_We're not crossing over. We're in the Matrix-probably the only place in which we can converse and not be punished for it. _Said Hobo was still blowing on an unfamiliar-looking flute. It was shaped like one of his beloved recorders, but far too small. A child-sized instrument, it nevertheless was the source of the note being held—

"A picolino?" He murmured. "One doesn't see that every day." What looked like his earliest version of the sonic screwdriver was corked neatly into the foot joint.

"There." The Hobo removed the music from his lips with a satisfied glare. "Sonic Time Bubble. That ought to hold things for a bit." Correctly interpreting the lifted eyebrows, he clarified: "At least a full attosecond! We can set up the cards if we get bored enough." He caught the wince and coughed, lowering the psychic amp, but He waved the recorder like a scolding baton before his future self. "Which brings us to the original question: "What in the name of Rassilon's Red are you _doing_ in here?"

Even in the digital reality, the mental power snapped and crackled around the two of them with the force of a storm over the Death Zone.

The Doctor blinked, just slightly impressed at this remainder that his Second Incarnation had been blessed/cursed with Pythia-level mental abilities. He vaguely remembered the _relief_ of the life that followed—the Time Lords had lobotomised that part of his brain, and he hoped they never knew how grateful he was for it.

He stared at his Past.

The Cosmic Hobo stood waiting before him, hands clasped about his lapels in that old, familiar mannerism he'd inherited from THE DOCTOR. It occurred to him that something was a little…odd.

"A little odd?" The Hobo knowingly lifted a samite-silver eyebrow.

"Well, I seem to remember…not achieving such a…" The Doctor paused. "…level of..._maturity_ in my second body."

The little fellow lifted the other eyebrow—all the better to spear him with it.

"I'M STILL THE CIA'S TAME TIME LORD, YOU NINNY. BE GLAD I MADE AMNESIA PART OF THE CONTRACT. THE NIGHTMARES YOU'D HAVE—"

Something rumbled outside the Time Bubble. Both Doctors glanced upwards.

"Is that the Valeyard?" Was the weary question.

"Now that isn't fair!" The Doctor exclaimed. "You knew about him but I didn't?"

"It wasn't that long ago that he tried to kill me first, genius!" The little Hobo snorted. He lifted a small hand, and for a moment, the Doctor was confused before realising he was being mannerly. "Rejecting his memory is one of the things that will have to go when they exile me to Earth. It's honestly for the best."

"Right." The Doctor did not hide his relief. Their temporal collisions were never pleasant, but they had learned by sheer accident how easy it was to hurt each other. He winced to remember that terrible, accidental mind-touch in Seville.

His second self was blocking his memories of the Valeyard from the CIA-thank goodness because who knew what they would do with the information? The price of the blocking was hiding it from himself. Well...he'd always been clever...

His earlier self waited, quiet and patient.

Swallowing hard, the Doctor stepped over and they clasped hands. Mind met itself. The exchange of information was immediate—and uneven.

"Not fair that you're hiding things from yourself, you know." He grumbled.

"It's for your own good." The little man sighed. "The Valeyard AND the Master? Aren't you lucky." He shook his head.

"I've got it under control, you know!"

"I can tell, boy." There was a gentle twinkle in the soft blue eyes. A moment ago they had been green. "Well, I'll stay out of the way…I just needed to make certain where you were in all of this…" He looked around the Time Bubble uneasily. "…so I can do a proper job of ignoring you."

"What exactly brings you into the Matrix?"

"Hmn? Oh. Something's gone off with the Matrix. Again. Popped the Keeper a good one! He woke up with no memory of his past three regenerations-thought he was still in school planning for his finals!" The Hobo shuddered to think of what it must have been to re-live those black days at the Academy. "That means getting familiar with some "basic repair work," unfortunately." He sniffed in disdain. "They can't repair what they can't see, so...ahem! They needed someone who's got a brain all stuffed with artron to go in and identify the variances on the logic programs." The Hobo wearily tapped his forehead. "I've got more artron in my head than anyone else on Gallifrey." He scowled further. "Why do I get the feeling I'm just a guinea pig in one of their endless experiments on Time and Temporal Distortion? I asked them, but they gave me some vague assurance that 'if anyone can notice something that doesn't fit, it's you, dear fellow."

"Oh, I don't envy me." The Doctor said with feeling.

"Nor me." The Hobo snorted lightly. "Anyway, I'll have to—"

The Doctor shivered. "Wait!" He held out his hand. "If you're really working for the CIA…then you're a mandated reporter, aren't you?"

"Er…yes…"

"You need to tell them about the Rani." The Doctor said quickly. "Please! I collided with her on Earth—She's just..._shattered_ Miasmia Goria, and she'll be moving on to others!"

The effect was instantaneous. The little Hobo's eyes went from wide brown to wide black, and back to narrowed chips of icy blue. A psychic rumble flickered beneath his mind, and his mind-voice went up at least 40 Psi-units.

"IS SHE STILL PADDLING ABOUT EARTH?" The Hobo asked quietly.

The Doctor nodded.

"WHICH REGENERATION IS SHE ON?"

"Her fourth."

"I SEE." That mobile, sad-smiling face went tight and grim. His eyes slipped to a gleaming silver.

The Doctor shivered. He understood killing and accepted it like few of his otherselves…but he knew to appreciate its roots.

The little Hobo tipped his head to one side, and aged, arthritic hands linked before his chest.

"I TOLD HER TO STAY AWAY FROM EARTH." He said, still in that quiet, quiet voice.

He'd spoken that way to Vaughn.

And the War Chief.

And the War Lord.

"THINKS SHE'S SO CLEVER," he shook his head in regret. "SHE WAS FIDDLING ABOUT, TRYING TO GET INTO THE MATRIX EARLY ON IN MY PAROLE. IT WAS HER SECOND LIFE. I TOLD HER TO STAY AWAY FROM EARTH." The small figure looked away, his face haunted in the dark. "SHE PROMISED ME."

The Doctor shivered. "However did I manage that?"

"IT WASN'T EASY."

"That's hardly a surprise."

"She broke the Oath." The little man said wearily. "She made the promise but she knew I wouldn't remember seeing her after I regenerated into Double-oh-Doctor."

"Why didn't you let me remember some of this?" The Doctor exclaimed indignantly. "It would have been useful, you know!"

Those silver eyes lifted and the force behind was palpable.

"You're in the middle of giving the Valeyard a well-deserved trouncing, are you not? If you remembered what I have to do for the CIA, he'd be unstoppable! The darkness inside me would just make him stronger." He lifted a small hand, uncurling a tiny fist to create an open dish with his palm. "I BALANCE THE DARKNESS. I HOLD IT IN, BOY. I'M BUYING YOU TIME."

It was awful but it made sense.

_It isn't the entire truth, though._ He sensed it more than saw with logic. _And I am right-if I remembered it would make the Valeyard stronger._

The Mara would have never been defeated if his Fifth incarnation had possessed darkness within.

Tegan's tears alone justified and defended his younger self's actions.

"Time's all a Time Lord needs." The Doctor smiled despite the sheer awfulness of the truth.

"I'll break the Time Bubble in 1.5 Aptos. Do what you must. I'll finish up here and report the Rani. What are the temporal coordinates?"

"I'll give them to you." The Doctor closed his eyes and concentrated.

"GOT IT." The Hobo sighed. And glared at his future self. "Be more careful, you." He said in a more normal mind-voice. "Things are going to get terrible, and fast. I'll tell them I picked up the report from one of the future-predictor programs-they used to be the pigeonhole for ever civic-minded citizen of Gallifrey in reporting crimes. They'll have no choice but to check out the planet for themselves." Another glitter as he pulled out his recorder again, small fingers dancing over the holes, preparing a new and different musical code—something approximating a garklein. "And...I'll see to the Rani." He promised. "Just don't expect to remember it."

"You aren't going to do anything we'll all regret, are we?" The Doctor asked uneasily.

The little Hobo met him full on with his eyes. "She swore her oath in Old High Gallifreyan." He said simply. "There's no getting around a contract written in Reality."

"Fair enough." The Doctor gulped. Whatever his younger self did, there would be no choice. The Rani had truly gone outside the walls of anarchy.

The little Doctor opened his mouth, about to press his lips to the mouthpiece. "And tell Jamie I said hello, there's a good chap." With no more warning, he blew a strong, poignant C-sharp in 7 to C-sharp in 8.

"What?" The Doctor stuttered. "What did you—d_id you just Foreshadow me! That's not fair! You—!"_

The Doctor came to himself in a foul mood, the snickering of the little tramp's amusement still ringing in his ears. It was a wonderful focussing tool. He rose out of the Matrix quicksand not only in the proper position, but without a hair on his perfect head out of place.

Glix, still holding on to his ankle armour, was impressed.


End file.
